Filkin’ Around: Black Abbot

Maybe I should stop listening to that binaural beats/lucid dreams stuff to fall asleep. It actually works pretty well… but the resulting dreams can be a bit, well, strange.

Sunday’s livestream featured semi-gimpy rogue Vic discovering anew just how VERY badly she sucks against undead as she tried to get herself flagged for Abbot along with LrdSlvrhnd and later Retsans (and even a bit of Citi thrown in for good measure).

Orchard was kinda sobering for Vic. When I say she sucks against undead, I mean she really, REALLY sucks. Badly. She’s 30, running level 14 quests on heroic elite, and struggling with stat damage and neg levels. Not pretty, and far from the generally-very-capable-even-if-she’s-no-Even Vic I’m used to.

She’s still never finished the heroic Orchard wildy, and I’m pretty sure she’d never run any of the quests on heroic, either. So she had nary a sigil piece to her name. Fleshmaker’s was pretty easy. Ghosts, mostly the same, until we got to Cholthulzz… and Vic, who almost never uses featherfall, beat Slvr down the falls by a wide margin, making her the sole target of ol’ Cholty’s wrath and resulting in her spending much of the end fight sequence completely helpless thanks to her 0 Con score. Yeah. Stat damage sucks. Would’ve been embarrassing if she’d died. LOL

Slvr was already spouting a good deal of maggro (mephit aggro) even before Vic headed to Orchard, because he’d been soloing Inferno on another toon and was somewhat more than heartily sick of trying to chivvy the right mephits to the right places. He’d already informed me in no uncertain terms that he was NOT going to run another Inferno… but luckily for me, Retsans took pity on me, Slvr ended up staying, Citi logged in, and we had actually a fairly enjoyable run.

We followed that up with several sigil-piece-farming runs of Vol. Poor Vic. I think now she’s got at least two or three of every sigil EXCEPT #5, the center frame. Luckily it can drop in any quest. Unluckily, that probably means a lot of Vol farming and neg levels from the quells.

I’m probably going to be doing a lot of heroic Orchard runs, because as much as I really do still hate Abbot, I seem to hate it just a little less every time I run it, and now I’m actually kind of hoping to get us all flagged and run it for guild night. Even’s the only toon I have who’s flagged, and until recently, she hadn’t even run it this life. You’d think with 19 toons on Thelanis, only two of whom are below level 16, I’d have flagged at least a few more… but no, they’ve all led blissfully Abbot-free lives so far. Acanthia did run the occasional Abbot during her first life, but has yet to flag in this one.

But anyway, about those binaural beats and isochronic tones and lucid dreams meditation audio files… I was sort of half waking up very early this morning, and somehow I started hearing Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” in my head, and I kinda felt like I’d been having a weird dream about Abbot flagging, so I donned my filk tiara (which was actually my prize for having the highest word count in my region for 2016 NaNoWriMo), and came up with “Black Abbot.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the original – first, shame on you! Luckily, I try to always link the sources of my inspirations, so here you go. For those who like to sing along, I used Karafun’s karaoke version in my video.

I was lucky enough to see Starship perform “White Rabbit” live, oh, many years ago. Grace Slick sounded even better live than she did recorded, and Mickey Thomas played a couple of riffs with his teeth. The next day, as my friends and I were leaving the hotel, we saw a guy walking across the parking lot and singing “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” at the top of his lungs. He walked right over a parked car, grinned and said “good morning” to us… and then we realized we’d just met (kinda) Mickey Thomas. Good times!

Streamin’ with Even is live every Sunday night at 11 pm Eastern time, now on the official DDOstream! The show will still be hosted on my own Twitch channel as well, but if you’re watching live and want to chat, DDOStream is the place to be. Videos are archived on my YouTube channel. I’m usually on Thelanis, usually on Evennote, and usually have room, so feel free to send me a tell if you’d like to join! I’m also definitely open to suggestions on what to run next. You can send ingame mail to Evennote on Thelanis, or email me at evennote (at) gmail dot com. Thanks for reading and/or watching!  🙂

Filkin’ Around: “Call Any Hireling”

My guildie Comic Relief made the most of his 100th blog post, which detailed 100 things he likes about DDO.

One of these days I should do something similar. Heck, I could get to almost 100 things just by listing all of my cosmetic pets… but that’s a whole ‘nuther topic. For now, it’s enough to say that two of my favorite things about this game are my guildies and DDO parody songs.

Got ’em both covered with this one – it’s a DDO-themed filk based on a song Comic asked me to parody, oh, aaaaaaaages ago (in the comments section of this post, to be exact).

Spoiler alert: You get to watch Wyoh die in a fire!

Couldn’t find a karaoke or instrumental version, so I just plugged in the original song and slapped the new lyrics in the (now always visible, no CC needed) captions.

Filkin’ around: “Purple Worm”

I’m sure anyone who read my last blog will be very glad that Niituna has been forbidden to touch the computer again. Ever. The strain on my Caps Lock key was incredible.

But if you’re an easily offended Prince fan, you just might want to stick with Tuna’s attempt at blogging instead of reading the rest of this, ’cause I’m venturing into kinda sacred territory here.

It’s been a pretty tough year as far as celebrity deaths go, and one of the hardest to take was the loss of Prince back in April. The Minnesota native was arguably the most brilliant musical mind of my generation… and he was NOT a fan of parody songs, having famously turned down “Weird” Al Yankovic’s requests to parody his music at least four times.

So I kinda feel a little weird about doing this. Wherever Prince is, if he should somehow happen across this, I hope he’ll know I mean no disrespect. I’m just pairing one of my favorite songs – “Purple Rain” – with a creature from one of my favorite DDO places.

Purple Worm

I never meant to eat that steadfast armor
I never meant to make my tummy hurt
I only wanted one time to eat you, human
I only wanted to eat you, human, ’cause I’m a purple worm

Purple worm, purple worm
Purple worm, purple worm
Purple worm, purple worm
I only wanted to eat your party ’cause I’m a purple worm

I never wanted to be a bloodrock medusa
I only wanted to hang out underground
Human, you could never dodge me, silly loser
It’s such a shame when you get swallowed down

Purple worm, purple worm
Purple worm, purple worm
Purple worm, purple worm
I only want to eat you up ’cause I’m a purple worm

Human, I know, I know, I know about digestin’
It’s time for me to grab you, start to chew
And your hire too

You say you’re not a feeder
But you can’t seem to win on this turn
I think you better give up
And let me chomp you ’cause I’m a purple worm

Purple worm, purple worm
Purple worm, purple worm

If you feel how I’m sliming you right here
C’mon, slide right down

Purple worm, purple worm
I only want to eat you, only want to eat you
‘Cause I’m a purple worm

Want Your Blade, Jack

 

Sigh.

I’ve begged the chest. I’ve danced with it. I’ve hugged it. I’ve tickled the itchy spot behind its ears – or I would have, if chests had ears. I’ve cheered for it. I’ve shown it my right hand so it can see that I still don’t have a Cursed Blade of Jack Jibbers. Tonight, I even groveled before it…

… all for naught. The loot gods sit on their lofty perches laughing at my feeble attempts to get that elusive Jibbers blade.

Clearly I need to try something new. And so I thought, hmmm, what says “I care” more than a song written JUST FOR YOU, chest? OK, so I borrowed the melody from “Hit the Road, Jack” by Ray Charles (László Csotye’s karaoke version used in the video can be found here) and put together this little duet between Even-the-pally and Jack Jibbers.

Lyrics are in the captions – if you don’t see them, click the little “CC” button at the bottom. They’re a bit confusing – the captioning I used let me use formatting, so it was easy to distinguish which lines were Even’s and which were Jack’s. Unfortunately YouTube stripped the formatting when I uploaded the captions file, so it’s all ordinary plain Arial 28-pt text. Meh.

 

 

At least now I do have definitive seen-with-my-own-eyes proof that Jack Jibbers’ cursed blade does indeed exist. I was starting to wonder! But the other night, I was about to make my nightly Two-Toed Tobias run and asked Keava if he’d like to come along. Turns out Keava doesn’t even own Three-Barrel Cove and had never run ANY quest out there. No problem, that’s what guest passes are for.

Right before we opened the chest, I told him he didn’t have to pass me the Jibbers if he pulled it… you see where this is going, right?

Uh-huh. On his FIRST EVER RUN, Keava pulled the Jibbers blade. I’m pretty sure Even was crying in the hot tub later that night. I’m a little disappointed, too. Not so much about not getting the blade, though…

Naturally the first thing we did was run around the wildy until we found some likely-looking mobs so we could get Keava killed and see the blade in action. I’d been under the impression that using the blade invoked an animation in which you dramatically stabbed yourself in the chest with it and miraculously rose from the dead. It’s not QUITE that cool. There’s a bit of black smoke, and then you’re just… alive. Well, kinda. You’re undead, and you have a scimitar sticking out of your chest. I would’ve preferred the self-stabbing animation, but it’s still pretty cool.

… and I still don’t have one.

Filkin’ Around: Umber Hulk Eyes

 

Update 31 hits tomorrow! YAY!

To celebrate U31, aka “Gnomework,” and the fact that WE’RE GETTING UMBER HULKS!, I thought a filk might be in order. After seeing the glowy umber hulk eyes in this preview video, I thought “Bette Davis Eyes” as performed by Kim Carnes would make a good filk. I used a karaoke version for my interpretation.

Lyrics are in the video captions – if you can’t see them, make sure you have captions enabled!

I was originally going to just use a screenie and paste the lyrics in the body of the post, hence the small image size on the video – I just couldn’t be arsed to go back and enlarge the images after I decided to go with a video instead of a still shot.

And yes, I DO already want umber hulk creature companions…

Filkin’ Around: Dragon Bane (She’s a mother, all right)

 

Paladin Even is probably the toon I play the most simply because, as long as I’m actively trying to stay alive (and sometimes even when I’m trying to die), she’s nearly impossible to kill. But when I was looking for something to livestream earlier tonight, I decided to bring a different toon, because I didn’t think the world needed another video of Even farming wraiths in FoT.

So I grabbed Trici, my seriously underplayed but totally adorable lvl 16 gnomificer, and took a look at her adventure compendium. “Aha,” I said to myself, “she hasn’t run Mired in Kobolds yet. That should be fun!”

And fun it was… until the end. After mostly cruising through hordes of kobolds, Trici just wasn’t quite up to the challenge of a bunch of self-healing casters, plus their melee friends… and oh yeah, Varath, that big dragon who really wanted gnome hors d’oeuvres. It wasn’t until her third re-entry that she finally dispatched them – only to find herself face-to-face with Sinvala, an even bigger dragon who happened to be Varath’s mother. Sinvala was NOT happy about the death of her offspring, and NOT interested in hearing Trici explain that it was all in self-defense. She was, however, VERY interested in turning Trici into a soulstone.

What can you do when your adorable gnomificer becomes dragon bait? You can filk, of course! So I wrote a little ditty about Trici’s experience in Driftwood Mire. Sadly, no lyrics with the video, because I couldn’t find a suitable karaoke or instrumental version of “Renegade” by Styx. Hopefully you’ll know the melody well enough to sing along – if not, well, that’s why I always link the original!

 

 

          Dragon Bane

Oh, mama dragon, run for my life from your big sharp pointy claws
Spiked plants have put an end to my running, they just tear me all to shreds
Oh, mama dragon, hear me a-cryin’, I’m a gimpy little gnome
Fire breath is rainin’ down on my head and I won’t last very long

My time is up, hit points are down
She’s finally killed me
No dragon bane, it’s such a shame
This quest is just silly

Release now and go away
Get revenge another day
On the dragon mom

Oh, mama dragon, sorry ’bout your son but please don’t bite off my head
Hire won’t heal enough keep me alive, now I’m for sure totally dead
Scary mama dragon, hear me cryin’, I’m a gimpy little gnome
Fire breath is rainin’ down on my head and I won’t last very long

My time is up, hit points are down
She’s finally killed me
No dragon bane, it’s such a shame
This quest is just silly

Release now and go away
Get revenge another day
On the dragon mom

Oh, mama dragon, run for my life from your sharp, pointed, scaly claws
Fire breath is rainin’ down on my head and I won’t last very long

Filkin’ Around: “Pally”

 

Our little band of Flower Sniffers of Destiny has been shortmanning raids of late – raids because they’re fun, shortmanning because of the lag monster.

During a fun but failed (because we let too many good guys die) attempt to four-man Defiler of the Just the other night, Seki said that Even seemed impossible to kill.

He mentioned that again tonight, after a successful three-man Fall of Truth and a not quite as successful Fire on Thunder Peak, also three-manned. We were actually not doing badly in FotP until Even accidentally grabbed the aggro of BOTH dragons and couldn’t shake it. PDK flesh must be a gourmet delicacy to dragons; even when she turtled up and let Seki and Gonari – neither of whom is any slouch when it comes to DPS – go after the dragons, all the dragons wanted was paladin shish kebab.

Sooo, no completion since you can’t damage either dragon if they’re near each other, and with them both aggroed hard on Even, there was no way we were going to get them separated. Eventually Seki had to log – real life, sleep, that kind of nonsense.  😉

I considered recalling, but RESPAWNING HELLHOUNDS. And I do not – YET – have a hellhound pet.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. A couple hundred hellhounds later, my fingers were cramping up and I was feeling almost ready to pack it in. Almost, but not quite. “I’ll just keep going until she dies,” I told myself. I figured it wouldn’t be terribly long before I ran out of both mana and Lay On Hands. I was right – kinda. The outdated con-op goggles Even wears, although they took a heck of a beating, kept replenishing her spell points when she got too low to Cocoon. Her Lay on Hands regenerate – not terribly quickly, but fast enough. Oh, and she’s using Terminus, which tosses a hjeal on her every so often when she gets hit.

No, Even wasn’t going down without a fight. “OK,” I thought, “I’m just going to stop hjealing her.”

But there was the not insignificant matter of those random shield hjeals, and then there was this nifty thing called Eternal Defender – short version, if Even’s hit points drop below zero but not lower than her range of unconsciousness, she immediately gets a hjeal. And with her crazy high heal amp, it’s a pretty nice hjeal, too. Oh, and I can’t remember the exact number, but her range of unconsciousness extends pretty far.

I stopped blocking. I took off her armor (Breastplate of the Celestial Avenger). I unequipped her shield…

… none of which helped. She still stood there very much alive for an inordinate amount of time considering there were two dragons, a bevy of magma brutes, hordes of skellies, the occasional necromancer, and, oh yeah, those hellhounds, all trying very hard to kill her.

I don’t know exactly how long she actually lasted. She’d been going for quite a while before I got the idea to start up the video capture, and the first capture went for maybe 10 minutes before failing because I ran out of disk space. (Oops.) After that, I tried to stop each video somewhere around a minute; ended up with four short clips I strung together, chopped the beginning off so it’d match the length of the song, and put on my filk hat. (No, I don’t really have a filk hat. Maybe I should get one.)

tl;dr: I tried really hard to kill Even. It took a while.

Lyrics are NOT in this post because I FINALLY GOT CAPTIONS TO WORK! GO CAPTIONS! If you don’t see them, click the little “CC” button near the bottom right of the player.

Sadly, I don’t know how to contact Dolores O’Riordan to see if she’d sing my lyrics to the Cranberries’ hit “Zombie.” I used Karafun’s karaoke version for this video.

Filkin’ Around: Steelstar Killed My Gimpy Bank Bard

 

My unfortunate, intentionally-gimped bank bard wishes she’d not chosen DDO’s 10th Anniversary Party for her debutante ball.

True, Scrag the kobold was happy to see her. And the Coin Lords gave her a nice salute when she arrived.

But then… but then…

Being a bard, she chose to describe her experience at the party via song. Not just ANY song, mind you, but a filk. Thus, my latest creation, to the tune of “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles (which was the first video ever played on MTV, in case you didn’t know), is the Amazing Gimp-O-Bard version. While you’re reading the lyrics (and hopefully singing them in your head – or aloud – to the melody), try to imagine them as performed by a somewhat plaintive sun elf wearing a big mushroom hat and strumming her lute with a bouquet of flowers…

 

   Steelstar Killed My Gimpy Bank Bard

I should’ve buffed her hitpoints past one fifty-two
Played that one song to get her DCs up there too
But she got stunned and there was nothing she could do
Ow ow ow

She ran upstairs and tried to dirge that dev arti
His robo dog just knocked her down and bit her knee
Wish she’d dumped Heighten for a toughness feat or three

Ow ow ow
She’s now a soulstone
Ow ow ow
He silenced her notes

Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard
Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard
He shot her up, it broke her heart
Ow ow ow ow ow ow

Her party favors – well, I guess they’ll stay with Jeets
The other devs she’ll never get a chance to beat
That oatmeal raisin cookie wasn’t such a treat

Ow ow ow
Some celebration
Ow ow ow
She’s bruised and achin’

Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard
Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard
His lightning blast zapped her health bar
His rune arm tore her all apart

Ow ow ow ow ow
Ow ow ow ow ow

Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard
Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard
His lightning blast zapped her health bar
His rune arm tore her all apart

He shot her up, it broke her heart
She missed him with her throwing dart

Oh, my gimpy bank bard
Oh, my gimpy bank bard

Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard
Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard
Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard
Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard
Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard (Oh, my gimpy bank bard)
Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard (Oh, my gimpy bank bard)
Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard (Oh, my gimpy bank bard)
Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard (Oh, my gimpy bank bard)
Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard (Oh, my gimpy bank bard)
Steelstar killed my gimpy bank bard (Oh, my gimpy bank bard)

 

Under the bridge

I’ve been told that I’m too obsessed with the way some overly elitist people treat other players who they feel don’t measure up to their high standards.

Not surprisingly, the few people who’ve said that to me are some of the most overly elitist players I’ve ever come across. Yes, equality for all in DDO is a soapbox I’m happy to jump on. I’ve seen a number of my friends leave the game over the treatment they received from people whose egos far outstrip their intelligence.

For what it’s worth, ask anyone who knows me well and they’ll tell you I’m just as obsessed outside of DDO; I’m very committed to equality and safety for ALL. Race, religion, gender, orientation, nationality – bullies use all kinds of excuses to try to make other people feel bad about themselves. So if you think I’m overly obsessed, I think you’re the one with the problem.

Reading this post really opened my eyes to just how bad some Internet trolls are. In case you don’t want to read the whole thing (it’s a bit lengthy), the tl;dr version is that a woman discovers her husband has been bullying people online. When she confronts him, he admits it and refuses to stop, even when she tells him she’s leaving him. This guy chose to lose his wife – who happens to be pregnant with his child, btw – rather than stop bullying.

I’ve experienced bullying at many levels. I choose to say, “I’ve experienced bullying” rather than, “I’m a victim of bullying” because bullying is a reflection on the bully, not on his or her subject. I’m not defined by what any bully says or does to me. I’ve been bullied at one time or another by family members, schoolmates, co-workers, and yes, DDO players.

I’ve often heard that the Internet is a hospitable atmosphere for bullying because of the anonymity. Some people feel invulnerable when they have a computer screen to hide behind. But unlike some, I believe the Internet only facilitates bullying rather than causing it. Someone who bullies people, whether online or off, lacks basic human decency. Some people are just much better at hiding it in public, I guess; I’ve certainly never wanted to deliberately make someone else feel bad about him- or herself just because the Internet would make it easier for me to “get away” with it. Intentionally inflicting distress on another person is wrong. Period.

That’s no consolation to people who are being bullied. It’s hard to know the right thing to do. People who aren’t involved find it easy to say, “Oh, just ignore it.” In my experience, that really doesn’t help. Like, AT ALL. Most of the bullies I’ve seen in action are attention whores. The more you ignore them, the angrier they get. It’s as if they feel, “How DARE your world not revolve around me! I’ll show YOU!”

But even though ignoring a bully doesn’t help and may actually make the situation worse, it’s often still the best option. Trying to stand up to a bully on one’s own is largely futile; trying to reason with one, even more so. Bullies are very good at twisting your words around, completely ignoring the parts that make them look bad and taking the rest out of context. They’re also very good at lying about their behavior and denying what they’ve said, even to the point of deleting or heavily editing their posts.

In fact, bullies who are confronted about their behavior often paint THEMSELVES as the victims. “I didn’t mean anything by it! You’re too sensitive! Why are you picking on me?” It’s hard to call them on their bullying, because they have a million and one excuses designed to gain sympathy for themselves and make YOU look like the bad guy. Yes, they really do think that they should be allowed to say anything to anyone, no matter how hurtful, and that the only time there’s “bullying” is when someone tells them their behavior isn’t acceptable.

This kind of thing happens all too often in DDO. Players are ridiculed for having the “wrong” build or gear. They’re jumped on for honest mistakes.

Friday night, I led a Tower of Despair learning run. One of the guys who joined typed in party chat that he didn’t have sound so he couldn’t hear spoken instructions (which incidentally is something I’ve also seen players bullied over and even kicked from parties, because people are too lazy/conceited/whatever to take a few extra seconds and type stuff out if needed).

The LFM clearly stated that this was a relaxed pace learning run with my usual “gimps/first-timers welcome” clause, so I told the group, both over voice and in text chat, that I’d be taking a little extra time at the start of each phase to type out instructions. At this point, I got a tell from the guildmate of the guy with no sound. Turns out he’s deaf and had never run a ToD before, in no small part because no raid leader would ever take the time to type.

Well, we got him through it just fine, and he did very well. I can’t even begin to describe the feeling I had when he opened the end chest and pulled his first-ever Shavarath trophies. Seriously. Best ToD EVER (which was also because Slvr was tanking shadows for the first time ever, AND doing it on his “gimpy” – his words, not mine – hagglebard, and he rocked it! And because Bonnie ran with us!).

I have friends who take grief because they don’t use mics, although they do have sound. I can only imagine the abuse this poor guy has had to deal with. But now, I have some new people on my friends list, and there’s one more player on Thelanis who now knows how to do ToD.

If you’re wondering what you can do to support people who are bullied, my suggestion is pretty much what we did Friday night. No, you don’t necessarily have to host ToD, but BE THERE for people who are bullied. Make an effort to include them and make them feel welcome without patronizing them.

Publicly befriending a bullied person, IMHO, does far more to stop bullying than trying to deal with the bully. It also takes the focus off the person being bullied without putting it directly on yourself, AND lets the bullied person know he or she is not alone.

If you’d like to learn more about how this works and why, I suggest taking a look at an excellent article about Feminista Jones’ #YouOKSis campaign. While Jones specifically aims to stop street harassment of black women, the principle behind her idea works for any kind of bullying behavior.

Because of the nature of bullies, I’m aware that I’m likely to get a lot of hate for this post. Bring it on. And no, that doesn’t mean I’m bullying the bullies, although I’m sure some of them will try to paint it that way. The difference is that what I’ve said is not intended to shame, humiliate, embarrass, or otherwise upset anyone, nor is it intended to put anyone down. I could sit here and tell people about bullies, but that’s just my opinion. To really see a bully for what he or she is, you have to see him or her in action. So if you’re hatin’, let it fly. Show us your true colors.

And since I haven’t done one in a while, I decided to throw in a filk. “Under the Bridge” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers works well here. After all, trolls live under bridges. But it’s also appropriate because RHCP vocalist Anthony Kiedis wrote it to express the pain he felt at being ostracized by his bandmates after he got himself off of drugs. His struggle to still be part of the group while staying “clean” parallels the difficulty many of us have in being part of guilds or parties made up of people who troll or bully others.

Under the Bridge
(With apologies to Anthony Kiedis and Red Hot Chili Peppers)

Sometimes I feel
Like I can’t find a party
Sometimes I feel
I can’t get a chance
To join in the fun and
Be part of the action
Lonely I wander
With just an owlbear

I solo some sagas
‘Cause the groups are elitist
I work on my hit points
And beef up my gear
Still some parties shun me
They tell me I’m too gimped
I say it’s no big deal
But that is a lie

Why you wanna make me feel
Like I’m useless now?
Just because I’m not like you
Why’d you put me down?
Why you wanna make me feel
Like I’m useless now?
Just because I’m not like you
Why’d you put me down?
Yeah, yeah, yeah

It’s hard to believe
That some players are so cruel
It’s hard to believe
How they hate all the rest
At least I have honor
Kindness and compassion
Lonely is nothing
Compared to hatred

Why you wanna make me feel
Like I’m useless now?
Just because I’m not like you
Why’d you put me down?
Why you wanna make me feel
Like I’m useless now?
Just because I’m not like you
Why’d you put me down?

Oh no, no no, yeah, yeah
Grow up, I say, yeah, yeah
For once

Under the bridge the trolls
Laugh and sneer and smirk
Under the bridge the trolls
Flame and act like jerks
Under the bridge the trolls
Show their nasty sides
Under the bridge the trolls
Make up all their lies

Yeah, yeah, yeah
Oh no, no, no
Yeah, yeah

Stop the hate

Filkin’ around: Nerf City

Mostly I’m pretty happy with how my toons have turned out since Update 19, and aside from TRing Char, which had nothing to do with the update, I haven’t reincarnated – lesser, greater, or true – any of ’em. But there are still little things I run across that make me wonder what in the world the devs were thinking. After watching Slvr’s bard Dirge the training dummy multiple times tonight while he kept swapping gear around to figure out why there was no Harmonic Resonance going on, the phrase “Nerf City” popped into my head… and well, when that happens, most of my friends know there’s a filk on the way.

Jan and Dean, sorry to butcher your classic “Surf City” with my DDO version.

Nerf City

Too bad, delete, reroll

I got a level 20 tempest and she used to be bad-ass
(Nerf City, now I’m gimped)
She could’ve used some hit points but she beat up the mobs fast
(Nerf City, now I’m gimped)
But they forgot dual-wielders in the last update
So now all she’s good for is just dragon bait

Well, we’re stuck in Nerf City and we’re feelin’ dumb
Yeah, we’re stuck in Nerf City and it ain’t no fun
Well, we’re stuck in Nerf City and we’re feelin’ dumb
Yeah, we’re stuck in Nerf City and it ain’t no fun

Too bad, delete, reroll

I could TR her to a wizard or I could try out arti
(Nerf City, now I’m gimped)
I gotta figure out a new build or get left out of parties
(Nerf City, now I’m gimped)
Her skill points are a mess, they almost make me laugh
Do I really need to dump her bluff to raise spellcraft?

Well, we’re stuck in Nerf City and we’re feelin’ dumb
Yeah, we’re stuck in Nerf City and it ain’t no fun
Well, we’re stuck in Nerf City and we’re feelin’ dumb
Yeah, we’re stuck in Nerf City and it ain’t no fun

Too bad, delete, reroll

My monk can’t rez her hireling with Rise of the Phoenix
(Nerf City, now I’m gimped)
They say it’s working as intended but it seems more like a glitch
(Nerf City, now I’m gimped)
My rogue can’t find the secret doors around Wheloon
And my sorc’s DCs are crap, guess he’ll be my bank toon

Well, we’re stuck in Nerf City and we’re feelin’ dumb
Yeah, we’re stuck in Nerf City and it ain’t no fun
Well, we’re stuck in Nerf City and we’re feelin’ dumb
Yeah, we’re stuck in Nerf City and it ain’t no fun

Too bad, delete, re –
Too bad, delete, reroll

Filkin’ around: Weird-shaped map

Since this is my first post originating entirely on my shiny new WordPress blog rather than on MyDDO, I thought I’d do a filk that pretty much sums me up.

I’m not really a huge fan of Nirvana, and this is the first song I’ve done that I don’t know all that well. But I like the creepy guitar riff between the verses, which seems to lend itself to how I feel when I’m wandering around lost in the wilderness.

So Kurt Cobain, I hope you’re resting in your pharmacologically-induced peace, ’cause I just stole “Heart-Shaped Box” and turned it into “Weird-Shaped Map.”

You think I’m kinda crazy ’cause I can’t find
My way around this weird-shaped map, I must be blind
I’ve been walking ’round in circles, then doubling back
Need some more explorers ’cause my map’s still black

Hey! Wait! I think I’m lost again
You got too far ahead and left me behind
Hey! Wait! I think I’m lost again
You got too far ahead and left me behind

Hey! Wait! I think I’m lost again
You got too far ahead and left me behind
Left behind

Searching for the quest entrance so far away
Getting there might take me at least three or four days
Finding where I want to go, it’s so much stress
If only I could craft a shard of improved GPS

Hey! Wait! I think I’m lost again
You got too far ahead and left me behind
Hey! Wait! I think I’m lost again
You got too far ahead and left me behind

Hey! Wait! I think I’m lost again
You got too far ahead and left me behind
Left behind

You think I’m kinda crazy ’cause I can’t find
My way around this weird-shaped map, I must be blind
I’ve been walking ’round in circles, then doubling back
Need some more explorers ’cause my map’s still black

Hey! Wait! I think I’m lost again
You got too far ahead and left me behind
Hey! Wait! I think I’m lost again
You got too far ahead and left me behind

Hey! Wait! I think I’m lost again
You got too far ahead and left me behind
Left behind, left behind, left behind

March Madness will return soon, I promise. With a spreadsheet, even! I know some of the text in the imported posts from MyDDO is hard to read; I’ll be going through as time permits and changing the colors to make them more readable.

Hope to see some MyDDO refugees over here, and welcome to any new readers. 🙂